


Home is Where the Wolves Howl

by darknesscrochets



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/F, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, Slice of Life, Telepathic Bond, hamid would be the cutest baby dragon fight me behind the dennys if you disagree, nebulous setting and timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 22:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30129468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darknesscrochets/pseuds/darknesscrochets
Summary: Azu comes home to her pack.
Relationships: Azu (Rusty Quill Gaming) & Everyone, Azu/Kiko (Rusty Quill Gaming), Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Azu, Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	Home is Where the Wolves Howl

**Author's Note:**

> y'all. I cannot believe i wrote fluff. i cannot believe i wrote _this much_ fluff. enjoy.

Azu opens the door of her home to the rumbling sound of sleeping wolves.

It’s nearly two in the morning, so most of her packmates are sensibly asleep; she doesn’t have time to take in more than that before Hamid scrambles up from the pile of wolves sleeping on the floor, tiny wings mantled as he hops up to the couch before jumping over to her shoulders.

“ _Azu!_ ” Hamid shout-whispers. He’s learned to be quiet on late nights like these, when most of the pack is asleep, even though his sleeping patterns are more erratic than theirs. “Azu, oh Azu, how did it go?” he asks, as he settles onto her shoulders, neck curling around so they can converse face-to-face.

Azu smiles, and thinks back to her date with Kiko. “It went well, Hamid, thank you for asking,” she answers quietly. She gently prises his claws out of her jacket, lowering him off of her shoulders and into her arms. Hamid is very, very small when he fully shifts; even though he’s a young adult in person-years, his dragon form is barely out of infancy, and weighs about as much as a large bird, hollow bones and all.

Hamid grins. She’s stopped finding it strange that a dragon can smile.

He seems to realize it’s quite late, and hops back down to the plush pile of rugs and blankets on the floor. “We can talk tomorrow,” Hamid whispers up at her, pushing _love-anticipation-happiness_ at her through the pack bond. “You’ll have to tell me _all_ about it.”

Azu nods, head heavy, but in the good way that comes after a night spent smiling and laughing and generally having a wonderful time. She really does need to change out of her date-night clothes, but she takes a second anyways to kneel down and press a gentle hand to Hamid’s head; he presses up into it, cat-like, though as a baby brass dragon he exudes more warmth than any cat she’s ever known.

Hamid loves affection, but only when he’s in his dragon form is he truly open about his desire for friendly touch. He doesn’t talk about his parents much, but Azu gets the impression his father wasn’t pleased to have a shifter in the family, especially one whose form is as unusual as Hamid’s is.

He’s with his pack now--with _her_ now--and Azu is always happy to provide a friendly touch. She strokes his head, gently pressing _love_ at him through their bond, until his eyes start to slip shut with true sleep rather than just contented _affection-touch-mine-friend-pack_.

Hamid settles back into the wolfpile, next to the grey wolf wearing a green harness that she knows and _knows_ is Grizzop. Even though he’s asleep, she can feel the unconscious _love-protect-pack-pack-pack_ that she’s always felt from Grizzop, from the very first moment she agreed to join their pack and the first tendrils of the bond connected them both. It’s never wavered, not once.

Azu was surprised by that, at first. Dedicated as she is to Aphrodite, Azu gives her love more freely than many, but she wasn’t expecting the same from someone of a faith known for being more… insular, in nature.

Grizzop excels at proving people wrong. He’s the smallest wolf of their pack, though still half again as large as Hamid’s dragon form, but he dedicates all of himself and more to the pack. He holds nothing of himself back, so much so that if he were any less practical, less driven, Azu would fear for his mental health if he were to lose them the way he lost his pack once before. She does worry a bit, though, at how his protective tendencies may smother Sasha one of these days.

Azu shakes her head fondly and stands up from where she’s still kneeling near the entryway. She picks her way through the room, checking on the rest of her packmates as she does.

Behind her, of course, near the front of the room, are Hamid and Grizzop, well-positioned to intercept anyone entering through the front door. Hamid is nestled into Grizzop’s side, and a bonfire’s worth of warmth emanates from their pile of scales and fur.

Past them, off to the side, is Sasha. Azu can barely make out her form in the low light, with its variegated black-grey-brown fur. Sometimes it almost seems like she was born to shift and melt into the shadows; it’s all that much stranger to remember that Sasha _wasn’t_ a wolf when they first met.

She is now, and seems both happier and healthier for it. Sasha doesn’t register nearly as strongly in the pack bond as Grizzop does, but every day she’s away from Barrett her mental presence is more… well, _present_. 

Azu is glad she’s chosen to join the rest of the pack tonight. Sasha only does so every one in three nights, if that, though it’s becoming a more frequent occurrence than it was. Perhaps because Azu was away all day, busy with her work at the temple, and then out late with Kiko; Sasha does like to keep tabs on them all, even if she’ll never admit it. Whatever the reason, Sasha _has_ joined the rest of their pack tonight.

Joined the _whole_ pack, Azu notes. Past the vanguard at the front of the room, and Sasha off in her own space, is Cel, their newest packmate.

Azu has to stop and admire their white-and-grey form every time she sees them. Cel’s presence in the packbond is still a muted _new-pack-safe-friends-safe-curiosity-safe_ , but it’s more than any of them expected to hear, since Cel only joined the pack a few weeks ago. Cel seems to have experience forming bonds; this is certainly not their first pack, nor maybe even their tenth. Prying details out of them is like pulling a sore tooth from a sick wolf, but Cel has a reputation as a wanderer, a temporary-packmate, that some of Wilde’s contacts passed along when the pack first reached out.

Azu hopes that Cel decides to join them more permanently. Everyone deserves to feel at home with their pack.

Further towards the back of the room, set off a bit from the rest of the group, are Zolf and Wilde. 

Wilde is leaning back against Zolf, his lanky human form resting easily against Zolf’s shifted one. Wilde has a book that she recognizes as one of Zolf’s favorite Campbells, the pages looking well-worn and well-loved even from here. Even though Azu hasn’t been the fastest of friends with Wilde, she’s happy that he feels safe enough here to let his softer side show. To truly be at home with her pack. 

They’re _his_ pack, too, even if he might not know it yet. Wilde is human through-and-through, though she and Hamid both agree that it’s only a matter of time before Zolf offers him the wolf.

That wasn’t always the case. Things looked quite different for a while, when Wilde was an agent of the meritocracy and burying himself between layers and layers of half-truths and coverups. 

Times have changed. Wilde’s here with them now, and maybe someday they’ll have to deal with the loose ends from the ugly mess that brought him here and left that scar on his face, but that’s a mess for another night. And as ugly as it was, it also brought Zolf and Wilde together.

Zolf, who’s in his wolf form tonight. It’s a rarity that’s slowly becoming commonplace.

Azu can feel a steady--if quiet--stream of _content-peace-pack-home_ from him. He takes the form of his wolf more and more lately, growing more and more comfortable in his own skin. Azu wasn’t around for the earlier days of the pack, but she can see from the way Sasha and Hamid react that this is a significant change in Zolf. A good one.

Azu knows what it’s like, to feel the call of the wolf in your soul and to not know whether to accept it. _How_ to accept it. She’s glad that Zolf has found a way to walk the path of the wolf in a way that works for him.

She shakes her head, conscious now of the smile she’s worn since the moment she got home and hasn’t dropped since.

Being around pack is like that. With the good ones, at least, and this _is_ a good one. They’ve clawed their way through darker days than she wants to think about to keep it that way.

Azu steps quietly around the edges of the wolfpile, careful not to disturb the corner Sasha’s settled into, and heads to her own door. It clicks open, undisturbed while she’s been out, and Azu steps into her sanctuary.

She teases the pink satin of her blouse between two fingers as she undresses from the night’s date; it’s silky-smooth-soft, and shines in the dim light of her room. Azu loves this shirt, and Kiko certainly seemed to appreciate it. They’re only a few dates into this relationship, but Azu hopes it’ll be one that lasts.

Wolves--shifters-- _people_ need to have pack, she muses, as she gently removes and folds the rest of her clothes. But they also need things to hold as their own; people to hold close to the private spaces deep in their hearts, people to love platonically or romantically or somewhere in between.

Azu hopes, soon, that she’ll be able to add Kiko to her growing list of people she can claim as her pack.

When she finishes undressing, as she does nearly every night, Azu gathers up her thoughts of Kiko, of Hamid and Grizzop and Sasha and all of her pack, and holds them close in her heart and mind as she shifts.

Her bones creak and reform, reshape and resettle. Fur grows in the blink of an eye.

Azu is very large, for a wolf. She’s the largest of their pack, bulkier than Zolf and longer from nose to tail than Cel. When shifted, she can tuck Hamid’s little dragon form close to her chest, like the most precious of space heaters.

On four legs, Azu pads out of her room back into the living room. She settles onto the rug between Cel and Hamid and Grizzop, fitting perfectly into the space they always leave for her. A gentle few feet away from Sasha, who is separate and yet distinctly present-- _deliberately_ present, given how well she can hide. Wilde shifts and looks up as she gets comfortable, smiling over his book. Zolf, not as asleep as he seems, lets out an annoyed huff at the movement, but through the pack bond all she can feel from him is _friend-pack-family-love_.

Azu pushes her own pulse of _love-love-love_ at her packmates through their bond, and lets the warm presence of her family lull her to sleep.


End file.
